Chapter 23
Rhiannon stared, not even blinking, just staring at me like she was trying to work me out. The two male officers left, leaving one blonde lady officer and a burly ginger man one. I said nothing for a long time. Rhiannon said nothing either.
Finally Rhiannon broke the deadlock. ‘You’re breathing very fast.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘You are, I can see your chest going up and down.’
‘No, it’s not!’
The blonde officer on the opposite wall stepped forwards.
I shook my head and she stepped back. I heard the man officer gulp noisily behind me.
I dreaded what was coming next – some intolerable small talk about the weather or how far I’d come or how much I’d grown. But what Rhiannon actually said was:
‘So what do you want to know then? You asked to see me so you must have questions. God, you look so much like your dad.’
More silence. More staring, both her at me and me at the clock on the wall behind her. I didn’t think it was working. The big hand had barely moved.
Rhiannon sat back in her chair. ‘Well, this is gonna be a fun visit. You sitting there with a face like a smacked arse and me sitting here stinking faintly of fish.’ I frowned. ‘I’m working in the kitchens this week. Mashing potatoes mainly. No knives.’
I nodded and glanced down at Rhiannon’s wrist – at the scar where she’d cut off her own hand before it had been reattached. I looked back towards the door.
‘Do you want to leave?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said.
She leaned closer across the table. ‘Well, my back is starting to hurt from carrying this conversation so unless you start talking—’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ I blurted. ‘I feel … the weight of you.’
‘Oh-kay,’ she replied, sitting back. ‘You’re awestruck, I get it.’
‘No, I’m not awestruck,’ I spat.
‘You are.’ Another prolonged silence. And more staring.
‘Stop staring at me,’ I snipped.
‘I believe I’m entitled to, seeing as I created and gave birth to you.’
‘You got pregnant with me from a one-night stand.’
‘It wasn’t a one-night stand. Me and AJ did it all the time.’
‘I don’t want to hear about it.’
‘We’d sneak out the office at lunchtime and fuck on Claudia’s bed.’
‘Ugh.’
‘King Arthur couldn’t have pulled him out of me some days,’ Rhiannon laughed. ‘Never took long, mind. We were normally back before the end of Loose Women. Aptly.’
I tried not to show how disgusted I was.
‘He visits me sometimes,’ I told her. ‘In my dreams. Or maybe he’s a ghost, I don’t know.
He tells me to do the right thing. Like an angel.
But sometimes I hear your voice too, telling me to do the bad thing.
Like a demon. Like … like when I want to hit someone.
Or smash something. Or kill my PE teacher. ’
‘Why did you want to kill your PE teacher?’
‘You know why. You sent your little minion, River, to stop me.’
‘Thinking about it though, weren’t ya?’ She winked. ‘That’s my girl.’
‘Don’t patronise me,’ I bit back. ‘I don’t want to be like you.’
Rhiannon leaned in. ‘Well, I have news for you, my darling bud, because that Lewis temper you’re trying so hard to hold down right now is my temper.
Those little nostrils a-flaring, those are my nostrils.
And that heart of yours beating so fast and furious in that ribcage, it’s pumping blood that runs in my veins. ’
‘I’m not like you. Killing’s a choice and I won’t ever choose it.’
‘Someday you may have to. To protect what you love.’
‘Never.’
‘Mark my words.’
‘I wanted to kill myself a few weeks ago. Does that count?’
Her face changed. ‘Why?’
‘Because my mum died. And stuff was happening at school. And I had no one. I’d just had enough.’
‘What stopped you?’
‘Seeing my dad again. He told me to fight it.’
‘Angel and demon; Daddy and Mummy.’
‘If you like.’
She folded her arms and sat back again. ‘A guy follows you home at night, are you gonna listen to the voice that says, Just keep walking and give him the benefit of the doubt or are you gonna listen to the one that says, Get ready to bite it off?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never been followed home.’
‘As far as you know,’ she scoffed. ‘You haven’t got a fucking clue because you’ve never really been tested up till now.
Claudia kept you wrapped in cotton wool.
A woman needs her wits about her in this world, Ivy – you’ll realise that as you get older.
Sometimes all you can rely on is yourself.
I’m in here with six hundred other women and the vast majority of those I’ve met are in here because of men.
You might need that inner Sweetpea someday when you least expect it so don’t deny her sunlight. Be ready for her to break soil.’
‘Just over a week ago I was kidnapped,’ I spat.
‘Yeah, I heard. There you go.’
‘And I didn’t need her then.’
She sat back in her chair again. ‘Go on.’
‘Your protection dog River was a fat lot of use. You remember Dean Bishopston, do you? That Birmingham taxi driver you killed who had three little boys?’
‘Ah yes. Dean. After the Beyoncé gig. Great day.’
‘How the hell can you joke about it? You murdered a father in cold blood. And any one of those boys could have taken their revenge on me that night. I could have been raped or killed. Because of you.’
‘But you weren’t,’ said Rhiannon. ‘Because of you. You survived because you used your wits and your temper.’
‘How do you know what I did?’
‘I don’t. I’m guessing. But you did, didn’t you?’
I wanted to leave at that moment. I looked back to the clock. It had only been six minutes but if felt like we’d been in this stuffy grey room for hours.
She leaned in. ‘Okay, maybe you can look after yourself in ways that don’t involve killing.
I’m glad. But sooner or later, you’re gonna need to get your hands dirty, Ivy.
You don’t have to be a killer – just a disrupter.
I’ll give you a little tip which worked very well for me once in Bangkok when a cab driver asked for more of a fare than I wanted to give him. ’
‘I don’t want any tips from you.’
‘It works. But it needs a certain … je ne sais quoi to pull it off. If you find yourself in a pervo sitch like that, and you don’t have a weapon to hand, and you don’t have anyone near to help you, you have to show them your insanity.’
And she told me what she did, leaving nothing to the imagination. And I’m pretty sure my face fell in on itself as she did.
‘WHAT?! I couldn’t do something like that!’
‘It worked like a charm. It was lucky I was on a particularly heavy period at the time, clots and all, so I just shoved my hands into my pants and—’
‘—looked like a complete maniac?’
Her laughed was all crunchy, like she smoked a lot.
‘Nobody wants to fuck with a maniac, trust me. They want a quiet, compliant target. And that is a fail-safe way of proving you’re a maniac.
I guess you could try spouting a load of gibberish about Xenu and hopping about on one foot, but I swear – you pull a period freak-out, he will run faster than a fucking tap. ’
I breathed down my nausea.
‘Sometimes, my darling, you have to know when to hold ’em, when to fold ’em, and when to bite it right off. So to speak.’
‘Is that what Dean Bishopston deserved, is it?’
She seemed to be sizing it up in her mind. ‘No. I did what I felt I needed to in the moment with him. I don’t beat myself up for it. We all make mistakes.’
‘Your “mistake” ruined five lives.’
‘Mmm,’ she agreed. ‘And what’s more, little Poppy Seed, you were inside me when I killed Drop Dead Bishopston. I did a preg test the very next morning and there you were. So technically, you killed him too.’
I felt tears come into my eyes, like a simmering kettle with steam puffing out its lid and water trickling down its sides. I tried deep breathing.
‘In for four, hold for—’
‘Shut up,’ I snapped.
The blonde officer walked towards the table this time to check on me. I held her at arm’s length. ‘We can end this now if you need to, Ivy.’
‘No. I’m not letting her win.’
The blonde looked from Rhiannon to me and back again as I continued to control my breaths.
I stared into my lap. ‘You’re the reason I’m afraid of blood,’ I blurted eventually, once I’d caught hold of my breath.
‘Am I?’
I still couldn’t look at her. ‘You came back to kidnap me in 2021 when I was two. You thought I had cancer and needed your stem cells. Your hand was covered in blood.’
‘You remember that?’
‘No, I read it in the final book and it sort of makes sense. I’ve been afraid of blood ever since I was tiny. I’m glad you didn’t take me. I’m glad I didn’t grow up with you as a mum.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I thought that might happen.’
I finally looked up at her but I was crying now and there was no stopping it. Luckily I wasn’t doing that huff huff thing I normally do – it was just tears, endless tears, and sniffing.
‘I knew you were better off with Claudia,’ she continued. ‘And you were, weren’t you?’
I nodded, clutching my pocket for comfort.
‘She gave you the best of everything.’
I nodded again.
‘And a happy childhood with freedom and safety and love.’
I stared at her.
‘You hate me for not taking you, don’t you?’
I didn’t answer.
‘If you had seen for yourself what I am – what I do – there would no longer be any doubt why I left you …’ She stopped. ‘What’s in your pocket?’
I looked down to my dungarees where a little face was peeking out. I pulled out Jon Hamm and held him up to show her.
Both officers walked towards the table to check it before Blonde Officer informed Ginger Officer that he’d already been checked for firearms and dope wraps on the way in. They allowed us to proceed.
Rhiannon smiled, large and wide. ‘Dicky!’ she shrieked. ‘What have you done to him?’
‘He’s always been like this.’
‘I can assure you he hasn’t. When I had him, he had a full set of clothes, eyes and limbs and a pristine green neckerchief at a jaunty angle. And he was pink as well, not grey.’
‘Well, he’s old. And I sucked him and chewed his arms all the time.’
She laughed and handed him back to me.